What to include
No two business plans will be the same. Due to all businesses being in different positions, certain topics will only be relevant and necessary for certain businesses. The following criteria should be considered.
Introduction
- What is your business?
- What will you supply/produce?
- What are the aims and objectives for your business?
- Who are you and what skills and experience do you have?
Market research
- Who will be your customers and why will they buy your product/use your service?
- How many potential customers are there? What % of that market will you supply?
- How many/how much will you sell?
- What is your ‘price point’?
- Who is your competition?
- What is your USP – Unique Selling Point?
- How will you market your product / service and what will it cost?
Operations and Personnel
- Where will you be based?
- How will you run your business?
- How will you distribute your product/service?
- Who will be running the business?
- Who will you employ?
- Who are the key people (including advisors)?
Finance
- Profit and loss account, cash flow and balance sheet.
- What are the potential variables and the impact of these – sensitivity analysis.
- When will you have the least amount of cash and will you need an overdraft?
- What are your set up costs? Will you need to borrow money?
- How will you raise that finance? – Finance
Risk and Contingency
- What are the main factors that will affect your business?
- How will you reduce those risks?
- How will you react to those risks
SWOT Analysis
- Strengths of you/your business (internal)
- Weaknesses of you/your business (internal)
- Opportunities (external)
- Threats (external)